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Southern Ontario Local Menu Plan

Spring is beginning to arrive at the market and that is good. It also is beginning to arrive in my backyard where I’ve been able to harvest small amounts of leaves from various young plants—dandelions, mustard, spinach, kale, and lettuce. So this is good. However, asparagus hasn’t come yet (Friday we will get some from Bailey’s!) so it still kind of feels like Spring isn’t fully here yet. At the Kitchener Market we were able to pick up some local greenhouse arugula and chard, but neither of those really makes me feel like spring the way the asparagus will.

Sunday afternoon we went for a hike at Rattlesnake Point which is on the Escarpment that looks out over Lake Ontario. It was beautiful! We joined two of Madame’s brothers and their spouses, had a lovely picnic, played some Frisbee and kicked around a soccerball, hiked, enjoyed the warmth of sun, and had a great time! When we got home instead of doing our Cinco de Mayo feast we had guacamole (a mini, non-local celebration!) and a frozen Beet, Potato, & Mushroom Casserole. Thus we will celebrate Siete de Mayo. I checked that phrase on google and the only interesting thing I found was a blog from a US surgeon in Afghanistan from two years ago. His reason cited was the same as mine, well not the same really in any way other than the fact that when you can’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo you celebrate when you are able! So, come on over for some great Mexican food on Tuesday night if you’re nearby!

The Eggplant Parmesan will be made with local greenhouse eggplants. Kind of hilarious, and strange… but I was excited to eat something different and pretend that it’s summer. Tonight’s Penne with Cabbage is something I’ve made before, but a long time ago. It’s simple and tasty. Also, I’m branching out this week, or returning to my roots–the Moosewood Cookbook is featured this week in two recipes, Eggplant Parmesan and Spanokapita. Should be great!

9 thoughts on “Southern Ontario Local Menu Plan”

I cannot wait for the asparagus, either – I have been craving it since about February 🙂 I see you are going to try out my cucumber and bean salad – hope you enjoy it! It’s a summer staple at our house. I will probably make it this week, too! Sounds like a fun day at Rattlesnake – my older son has gone rock climbing there a few times.

Yes, we’re in asparagus countdown mode! We had a cookbook open today for the pasta recipe and there was a pic of a pasta with asparagus and we were like “oh man, now we can make that and so many other things!” Our goal is to eat asparagus as often as possible in the next month! I’ll let you know how the salad turns out, thanks for the recipe:)

Hey, the truth is that neither my wife nor I really liked eggplant until we tried this eggplant parmesan recipe! And then when we started growing our own eggplant and we realized how much better it was we started liking it in all sorts of dishes! So I think it’s something that really depends on the recipe and on the quality of the particular eggplant that’s being eaten! Don’t give up on them, maybe some day they’ll like it:) (And if not then keep ordering it!)

There’s a great chard spanokapita in SiS (pg. 205…you may recognize the author). we made it for for our wedding, along with Eggplant Parmesan, B’s fav. It may be the dish that redeemed eggplant from the low opinion i had of it as a child.

That’s great!! Especially considering I don’t actually have much spinach yet–the plants in the garden are pretty small with only 5-6 leaves so far! I was considering using a mixture of greens but chard is great because on a whim I bought a bunch at the market Saturday. Thanks for the advice – and I just paused writing to go find the cookbook, that’s so awesome! That’s the first time I’ve personally known a cookbook contributor! And I agree about the Eggplant Parmesan, we’ve made it so many times we don’t even look at the recipe anymore… although I probably should.

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Kitchen’r Jon

My name is Jon and I'm always trying to do my best to eat local and live sustainably. I'm not a chef, but I love doing work in the kitchen!

What is a kitchener?

kitchen - er; noun;
1. A person who spends many parts of the day in the kitchen
2. A person who cannot quite be considered a cook but who nonetheless loves to cook and finds the kitchen the happiest place in the house.
3. A city in Ontario, Canada (and coincidentally where The Kitchener resides).